8mm film question

[system32]

I have some old wedding footage on 8mm film. I wanted to know how I could get it on a dvd or on a computer.



Anywhere I could go?
Anything I could buy?
Anything I can do?

[TCav]

There used to be lots of ways to convert 8mm movie film to VHS video tape, and there are lots of ways to convert VHS video tape to DVDs, but there aren't a lot of ways to convert 8mm movie film to DVDs. You will probably have to use a service.

Isuggest that you convert the 8mm movie film to VHS video tape first. Going from 8mm film directly to DVD uses compression that reduces the quality of the image, while the conversion from 8mm film to VHS tape doesn't involve compression, so it will give you the best quality image.

See Telecine.

Good luck

[ajaynejr]

Going to VHS sucks a lot of quality out of the picture. Among other things, "color resolution" becomes limited to about 40 color changes across the screen, even for S-VHS and Hi-8 analog.

Whether you are converting to VHS or DVD, starting from movie film requires the telecine machine, which indeed scans every single film frame.

If you did convert the film to VHS, should you convert that VHS tape to DVD you will encounter the same aforementionedcompression.

Video hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidcolor.htm

[[email protected]]

I've had great sucess converting our family home movies to DVD. I set up the 8 mm projector about 3 or 4 feet from a piece of matte photo paper, position a video camera (Fuji 8mm) right next to the projector, and run the composite output (red,white,yellow) from the camera directly into a DVD recorder. I roll the film, record onto a DVD R/W disk at highest quality, and then edit with Magix Movie Edit Pro. If you search the web a little, you'll find lots of helpful hints about how to optimize the quality of the captured video, like having some room lights on to reduce the contrast in the captured video. Having the camera right next to the projector also captures the clickity-click of the projector, so when you play back the DVD, it sounds just like the old home movies.

[TCav]

[email protected] wrote:

Having the camera right next to the projector also captures the clickity-click of the projector, so when you play back the DVD, it sounds just like the old home movies.

:-)

But it seems to me that if you can run the projector's audio output straight to the DVD Recorder's audio input, the quality would be a lot better (albeit without the clickity-click.) My guess is that the speakers on an old 8mm projector won't sound as good as they once did (if they ever did.)

[[email protected]]

There's no audio output on the projector. It plays old fasioned 8mm movies with no sound track. If you dont want the clickity-click to be recorded, just don't connect the audio RCA cables (red and white) between the video camera and the DVD recorder. You can always add a soundtrack later during video editing.